Episode 8: Negativity Bias and Your Mindframe with Dr. Alison Ledgerwood

Is the glass half full or half empty? It is quite obvious that not everyone sees the glass exactly the same.  Negative and positive views are often formed by how something is described, but research by Dr. Alison Ledgerwood shows that it is a human tendency to get stuck in the negative mindframe. 

Join us for a discussion about positive and negative mindframes, what research says about them, and tactics for learning to reverse a negative outlook. In an approachable conversation, Dr. Ledgerwood shares about many important, yet incredibly easy, tactics that you can simply apply to your day to improve your positive psychology. This isn’t a magic fix, but the research they conducted does show you can change your mindframe if you work at it. 

Dr. Ledgerwood also shares about how negativity bias intersects with the psychology of racism, and how we can begin the discussion of overcoming this barrier as well. We hope that you find this to be an encouraging and empowering podcast episode!

Key takeaways

• A little about herself and the work she does
• What negativity bias is
• How negativity bias shows up in real life
• Some experiments she has done and what she has learned so far
• What the framing effect is
• How to shift the mindset from negative to positive
• Limitations to the general tendency to focus on the negative
• How you can change the way you think
• Easy ways to change your thinking
• The power of practicing gratitude
• What resilience is
• How individual and collective resilience plays out in the healthcare setting
• How to deal with negative emotions accordingly
• Other things that can help build resilience
• Why taking a deep breath is beneficial
• How negativity bias intersects with systemic racism
• What the out-group homogeneity effect is
• Ways to combat negativity bias

Links

• Getting Stuck in the Negatives (and How to Get Unstuck) TEDx Talks by Dr. Alison Ledgerwood - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XFLTDQ4JMk
• As Well App on Google Play - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.greencircleinitiatives.aswell
• As Well App on the Apple Store - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/as-well/id1491996140

Books

• The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld - https://www.amazon.com/Rabbit-Listened-Cori-Doerrfeld/dp/073522935X

Dr. Alison Ledgerwood Bio

Dr. Alison Ledgerwood is a professor and Chancellor’s Fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. Her research and public outreach focus on understanding how humans think and behave in social situations, and how people can harness that knowledge to improve their lives and the lives of others. Her work has appeared in top journals and handbooks, and her TEDx talk on how to retrain your mind to counteract negative thinking has been viewed over 5 million times.